[This IRIN report does not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations]

ADDIS ABABA, 20 July (IRIN) - While the nature and timing
of deciding on humanitarian crises is fraught with
difficulty and political implications, not least in
a country at war, the UN Country Team (UNCT) has warned
that without help, Ethopia's modest development gains
achieved this decade will be erased.

Though there is currently no famine to galvanise action,
the UNCT has warned that without additional food aid
and targeted non-food interventions, the counter-intuitive
notion of a "green famine" may become dreadfully
familiar - with food crops growing in the fields as
an ironic backdrop to the large-scale migrations and
displacements, massive camps and widespread deaths
for which Ethiopia, sadly, has become a byword.

A poor response to successive government appeals reflects
a measure of donor impatience with the Ethiopian authorities.
A diplomatic source told IRIN that, while donors are
well aware of the humanitarian crisis developing, they
have had difficulty reconciling Ethiopia's appeals
for aid with the continuing border war with Eritrea,
estimated to be costing at least US $1 million a day.
"There are certainly people considering how to
respond to a government which can find somewhere around
US $150 million off the books to finance this war,"
the source said.

The opportunity costs of the war - apart entirely from
those killed and maimed in fighting - became clearer
last week when the annual 'Human Development Report'
published by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) revealed
that Ethiopia had slipped further in its human welfare
rating and now stood third from bottom of 174 countries.

Given Ethiopia's social needs - the report revealing,
for instance, a per capita calorie intake of 1,845,
compared to a recommended minimum daily intake of 2,000
calories, and that 42.3 percent of the population will
not reach 40 years of age - donors have been dismayed
at Addis Ababa's recent reversal of its policy of cutting
military spending. This has jumped from 1.8 percent
of government expenditure in 1997 to an estimated 12
percent in 1998 and what could account for anything
from 15 to 20 percent of budgeted spending this year,
media sources in the country told IRIN.

Ethiopia's position, outlined to journalists last week
by Deputy Commissioner of the Disaster Prevention and
Preparedness Commission (DPPC) Gizaw Birhane, is that
it has been "confronted by two disasters not of
its own making", drought and war. While it had
"no alternative but to fight aggression",
the war had never drawn its attention from the food
security crisis. Gizaw said he had come across no linkage
by donors between Ethiopia receiving humanitarian assistance
and making peace with Eritrea. What he had been told
by donors, he added, was that the Kosovo crisis had
exhausted a big part of their emergency budgets.

There have also been claims, virtually impossible to
substantiate, that food is being diverted to feed troops
fighting Ethiopia's war with Eritrea. The UN World
Food Programme (WFP) country director, Judith Lewis,
said food distribution was being closely monitored
to ensure that this would not happen. The war has also
displaced an estimated 380,000 people from their homes
along the border with Eritrea and seen Ethiopia mobilise
a large standing army, which have both disrupted agriculture
and created additional food aid requirements. Humanitarian
sources in Ethiopia told IRIN peasant farmers in the
north of the country were signing up for the front,
enticed by wages reported to be 250 to 400 Birr (about
US $30 to $50) a month.

The UNCT has said it considers the war "a most
unfortunate thing" but not a crucial factor in
the current crisis. "Regardless of the war, this
year we would have an emergency operation to address
this drought," said Emergency Coordinator Jim
Borton.

There is also a school of thought among donors that,
with Ethiopia having had a good harvest last year and
a surplus in western parts of the country this year,
the weakness of the internal market is a crucial issue
and only by strengthening it can the phenomenon of
cyclical food shortages in particular regions be addressed.
"Parts of the country will just never be food
secure," said one source. "The argument is
that instead of people calling crisis year after year,
the market should ensure distribution of food from
surplus areas to those that are short."

Meanwhile, however, as a humanitarian crisis unfolds
for over five million people at risk, the UN Country
Team "is trying to separate the humanitarian needs
from the political issues", according to WFP country
director, Judith Lewis. "If we don't have assistance,
immediate assistance, then that's when people will
die", she warned.

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